The Development of Self: Playing the Long Game

Is the self really a matter of perspective? I was listening to a motivational speaker make an analogy of the glass with water. When the question of whether the glass is half empty or half full, the answer he came up with was "how do I fill the remaining part of the glass?" This is an example of redefining the problem. It is not a matter of whether the situation is good or bad, but what you will make of the situation as it stands. How do I fill the glass?

It is easy to continuously see oneself as a victim after a horrible experience, and being beaten will likely have that affect on anyone, as it did me when I was a child. The question is not that the experience of being beaten was horrible, because that is a fact and so in this sense the glass is half empty, or that the experience made me stronger as an individual so the glass is half full. These interpretations are based on an examination of the past and while the nature of those examinations play a major role in how you will approach the future, it is more important to say to yourself "why did this happen and how do I prevent it from happening again."

The approach to prevention then is the focus. For example, if you don't have enough money at the end of the month, then what can you do to save more money for the next month, by maybe cutting the unneeded from the month to keep more money for the period. If you cannot wake up in the morning and rush to work as the result, then you can put the alarm on the other side of the bedroom and walk to the kitchen to avoid returning to bed. If you cannot stop eating, then drink three glasses of water before you eat to fill yourself. The water in the glass is not as important as what you do with the remainder of the space.

Experiment with yourself. Always be a learner of you. Research the ways you have unsuccessfully approached a problem, and try something different, but a something that matches with your core values and beliefs. You may even explore the viability of your beliefs in relation to your greatest failures and defeats.